


Scars of Our Past

by frozensight



Category: Supernatural
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-31
Updated: 2012-12-31
Packaged: 2017-11-23 01:46:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,026
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/616703
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/frozensight/pseuds/frozensight
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sam and Castiel share their scars from purgatory/hell with each other.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Scars of Our Past

**Author's Note:**

> co-written with [Savy](http://savysunbeam.tumblr.com) for the sassysanta2012 exchange

All he could see everywhere was fire. Fire eating at his feet, his hands, his face, and it burned white hot as it licked all over him. He could feel his skin shriveling up and peeling off as it became too singed to function as proper skin anymore. Laughter, rambunctious and wild, played in the background of everything, though as more and more of his skin burned, the louder he screamed, and the more determined he thrashed around trying to get free, the closer the laughter got until it was by his ear, roaring past the sound of the raging fire.

“Got you now, Sammy, don’t I?” whispered the voice, and he flailed harder, trying to escape that voice and the fire and the pain. “Nu-uh, Sammy boy. You aren’t allowed to leave until I’m through with you.”

Sam Winchester woke up as the Lucifer in his dream stuck a glowing red poker to his his side. He breathed heavily as he sat up and realized, to no surprise, that he had been sweating as if he had been stuck inside a sauna for hours. He looked over to where Dean was asleep on the hotel bed beside his, and let out a slow shaky breath at how peaceful his brother looked in his sleep. Sam knew Dean had his fair share of nightmares, having been both to hell and purgatory and back, but Dean hadn’t spent years playing the devil’s favorite toy. It’d been a couple years since Sam had gotten his soul back and even less since Castiel had taken all of his hell shit from him, but that didn’t mean he had stopped having nightmares. Sam was pretty sure he’d never stop having nightmares.

Speaking of Castiel though, Sam didn’t see him in the hotel room. He’d been sitting at the small table on the other side of the beds when the brothers had gone to bed, but looking there now, Sam didn’t see the angel whose company he’d grown accustomed to having over the past couple of weeks since he’d miraculously shown up after Dean had led him to believe he was stuck in purgatory for the foreseeable future.

He shoved the covers back and walked carefully to the bathroom to rinse his face before he slipped on his shoes and went outside. The air was crisp, but not too cold. It playfully hinted at the fact that it was fall and that winter wasn’t too far off, and Sam enjoyed the smell of the night air. He glanced around to make sure that no one was around so that he could call Castiel, but when he looked at the impala, he realized he wouldn’t have to. Perched on top of Dean’s beloved car, was Castiel, just staring up at the sky as if he expected it to reveal all of the answers to all of the questions the angel had.

Sam didn’t say anything as he approached the car and got up beside Castiel, leaning back over the top so that he wouldn’t get a crick in his neck from looking up. The metal of the car was cool against his skin, and it comforted him from the tendrils of the nightmare that lingered in his mind.

Neither of them looked at each other, and instead they looked up at the sky together until Castiel said, “I take it you couldn’t sleep.”

He shrugged even though he knew Castiel couldn’t see. “Feels weird to sleep when you can’t.”

Castiel snorted, and it seemed more bitter than it used to, before all the leviathan shit. “It’s not a matter of can’t, Sam; it’s more that there’s no point when I do not require it. Besides, I would most likely only dream of the things I already think about constantly while awake. Why have my thoughts and memories projected to me in an abstract form when I can just sit out here and mull over them with a clear mind.”

Sam’s eyes shifted down a little so that he could see the back of Castiel’s head, and he watched it for a bit before he asked, “So you really don’t think you can be redeemed then?”

There was no questioning over how Sam knew about the conversation that had taken place between Castiel and Dean, and no inquiries as to why Dean would offer the information to Sam. Just a quiet admittance from Castiel of, “No, I don’t.”

Silence blanketed them for a moment as they both returned to the stars, Sam now thinking more about Castiel and all the stuff that had to be running through his mind and how so often Sam had thought very similar things in the middle of the night. The stars offered nothing to him but their twinkling light--scintillating, he remembered hazily from an astronomy class that he had taken longer ago than he cared to think about--but it was still calming to look at. Or maybe that was Castiel’s company, Sam honestly wasn’t sure at the moment.

“You know, I get it. The not thinking you’re worth being saved thing,” said Sam as offhandedly as he could. Castiel’s head turned so that his eyes landed on Sam, and for some reason having his full attention made Sam sit up. This wasn’t a conversation he wanted to appear to be taking lightly. “Dean gets it too, but he sucks at telling even me how he’s feeling at any given moment. It’s a little bewildering to think that you can do so much bad, good intentions or not, and still somehow find yourself breathing and relatively unharmed when so many horrible things happen to wholly decent people everywhere. Like, why do we get to have dozens of second chances but great men like Gandhi or Martin Luther King Jr. don’t?”

Castiel’s eyes hadn’t left Sam’s, and an expression that should seem judging and mildly disconcerting had settled over his face. He didn’t speak for a while and Sam began to think that maybe he should go back to bed, but eventually Castiel turned his eyes back to the stars and said, “I have been given too many opportunities to start over, Sam, and I’ve squandered every single one.”

“You haven’t _squandered_ them.”

“I have. I did not wish to depart from purgatory because I was not done paying for all the things I’d done. I almost wish Roman were still around so that I could return to that place. I don’t deserve to be here with you and Dean. My crimes can never be repaid except by an eternity spent in that place.”

“Don’t you see that that isn’t the way to give back?” Castiel met Sam’s eyes again, but this time his eyebrows were furrowed in confusion. Sam reflexively grazed the scar on his left hand with his right before he continued, “If you just spend your whole life punishing yourself in purgatory, what kind of reparation is that for the people who died because of you?”

“My punishment is my payment to them, obviously.”

Sam sighed. “No, I get that, but that’s not really doing anything for them, is it? Do you think Balthazar would want you to live out the rest of your life in purgatory, exiling yourself from everyone left who cares about you, just to pay for his death?”

Castiel shrugged. “It was always hard to know what Balthazar wanted.”

“Bad example, but my point stands. A better way to make it up to all the people you’ve wronged is to try and _right_ things. Stay here, on Earth, and try and help the people here. That’s how Dean and I make it through, so why can’t you? You’re an angel; it should be easy for you to do a couple of good samaritan deeds a second!” The angel opened up his mouth to say something in rebuttal, but Sam placed a hand on Castiel’s shoulder to stop him. “I’m not saying you’ll ever pay back that debt in full, Lord knows neither will I, but that doesn’t stop me from trying. It is possible to make a difference in a positive way, Castiel.”

Sam left his hand on Castiel’s shoulder for a while, watching as Castiel’s face gazed up at the stars and contemplated what Sam had just told him. After a moment, Sam also looked back up at the stars, thinking about how there were all so obscenely far away but appeared as if they were just a rocketship away.

“Why are you awake, Sam?” He couldn’t say that the question was unexpected, and Sam took his hand off Castiel’s shoulder to run it through his hair.

“I had a nightmare.”

“Was it hellfire again?” Sam wanted to ask how he knew that, but Castiel’s eyes were still fixated on the starry skies above them. “Sometimes my skin tingles in an unpleasant way whenever you have nightmares, and it reminds me of what fire feels like before it starts burning you.”

Sam’s eyebrows furrowed. “You can sense when I’m dreaming about hellfire?”

“I think I can sense whenever you dream about anything, but those are always the easiest to notice as I’ve battled the fires of hell more than once on my own.”

Sam felt like he should be disturbed by this news, but it honestly made him feel better. It was a relief to know that someone knew he was having those nightmares without having to say anything. Dean would probably have a fit if he knew Sam still dreamed of hell.

“Yeah, it sucks, but I see it as my own kind of penance that I can pay along with trying to help people.” He continued to watch Castiel, curious as to how this conversation would progress. “Do you ever have nightmares?”

He could see that Castiel had closed his eyes, but was still facing the sky. Sam thought that he would have to ask him again when his eyes opened and Castiel said, “Everytime I close my eyes

I see all of the people I have wronged, intentionally or otherwise. I see the hundreds of brothers and sisters I’ve slaughtered in my haze of power. I see the multitudes of innocents I’ve murdered, thinking I was doing the right thing. I imagine that if I were to actually take the time to fall asleep and dream that I would never wake up.”

Sam wasn’t sure what to say to that because saying something as trivial as ‘that sucks’ seemed out of place, so since words were failing him, Sam did the only other thing he could think of--he hugged Castiel. It was one of those awkward side-hugs, but from the way Castiel sort of leaned towards him, Sam knew he had made the right decision.

“Well if you wake me up from my nightmares from now on, I promise to wake you up from yours.”

Castiel nodded, his own arms coming up to wrap around Sam despite the awkward angle. For someone who had presumably been outside all night, Castiel was very warm, and Sam guessed that angels had something of a nuclear core that kept them heated constantly since they weren’t always wearing the warmest clothing. They stayed like that, holding each other for a while until Castiel, who had begun to rub Sam’s back in slow circles, asked, “Would you mind if I showed you something?”

“No.”

Sam found himself being pushed away slightly until they were face to face again. Castiel’s hand was raised and hung between them as he said, “This will most likely be unpleasant, but I feel like I should share it with you.”

He just nodded, unsure what exactly it was Castiel was going to share with him, but wanting to know despite the possible outcomes of knowing. Castiel let out a short breath as he pressed his fingers to Sam’s temple and closed his eyes.

Immediately Sam felt a wave of regret, guilt, and self-loathing wash over him as flashes of what he could only assume was Castiel’s memories flooded his mind’s eye. He saw millions of dead bodies in what felt like only a couple seconds, he saw the fields in heaven littered with motionless angels, and he saw rather than felt the immense weight Castiel had been carrying on his shoulders. The whole experience lasted less than a minute, but by the end of it Sam was having a hard time catching his breath and he couldn’t stop the fact that tears had begun falling from his eyes.

Meeting Castiel’s eyes, Sam said in a small voice, “You walk around with that every day?”

“I think about it every minute, Sam, because as an angel my ability to think about more than one thing allows me to remind myself of all the horrible things I’ve done constantly.”

“Typically people try to forget what they’ve done, you know.”

“I will not give myself such a luxury. I deserve to remember everything. Forgetting would be too easy; besides I can’t forget. An angel’s memories have no brain to call home, they are instead etched into our very grace, that way we cannot forget anything--important or not.”

“Cas...”

The angel shrugged and diverted his eyes back to the stars. “I’ve already grown accustomed to it, so there is nothing you can do. I have come to think of them as scars, as they’ve mostly healed over and now I just carry on day to day and suffer their shiny pink reminders.”

With more ease, Sam wrapped his arms around Castiel again, but this time the angel didn’t lean into his touch, which just made him squeeze all the harder. “I’m here for you Cas; you don’t have to go through this alone. None of us do.”

A hand came to rest on Sam’s back, and there was a pause before Castiel asked, “You have scars now too, don’t you?”

Sam paused because that wasn’t something he’d talked about with anyone except for Amelia, and with her he’d just claimed it was from a really bad car accident. She’d bought the lie easily enough and she hadn’t pushed for more information. With Castiel though, he knew that he couldn’t pawn it off as something so mundane. He couldn’t do that to Castiel.

“They appeared soon after I got my soul back.” His voice was barely above a whisper, but he knew Castiel could hear him. Now Sam was kind of burying his face into Castiel’s shoulder, not really wanting to see his face. He didn’t like talking about the scars because unlike the nightmares, there was no chance of them going away. Like Castiel had said, they were horrid reminders that would never go away.

“Oh Sam,” was all Castiel said to that as he began to rub Sam’s back, but in a way so that he traced the scars on his back with a haunting precision considering Sam was still wearing his shirt. Sam allowed it because besides Amelia, no one had ever touched his scars in such a gentle and tender way, and it almost made him forget that they had been inflicted upon him by the devil himself. It almost made him forget that they were there at all.

As Castiel traced his scars through his shirt, Sam found himself shivering, but not because of the cold because Castiel was more than warm enough for the both of them. He shivered because it felt like Castiel’s fingers were tracing pure emotions into his skin--forgiveness, love, and a sorrow that felt more empathetic than sympathetic--and it was probably the most relaxing and comforting thing Sam had ever experienced. He never wanted it to stop because he felt like he could fall asleep right there on top of the impala, Dean’s hollering about scratching the car in the morning be damned.

“Sleep, Sam. I’ll watch over you.”

“No, I won’t leave you alone.”

He felt Castiel laugh, and knowing that he had probably made Castiel feel a little bit better made Sam happier than he’d felt since seeing the angel again. “How could I be alone if you’re right here with me?”

He made a fair point, and Sam shifted a bit only so that he could see the stars. It wasn’t the most comfortable position, but being able to see the sky felt incredibly important in that moment and Sam wasn’t about to deny his instincts. He heard Castiel snort again before he found his head being lowered to Castiel’s lap.

“If you’re going to sleep out here, you should at least do so in a way that will minimize the amount of body pains you’ll have in the morning.”

“Aw, but you’d just use your angel mojo and make me feel better, wouldn’t you?” His tone was playful, but his question was of genuine curiosity.

Castiel looked down at him, the tiny smile on his face a far better expression than the gloomy self-deprecating one Sam had seen when he’d first come out. “I would do anything for you, Sam Winchester.”

Sam’s skin prickled, and the words seemed to carry more than just a promise to help him with back or neck pain come morning. There was something deeper there, but Sam was too tired now to think about it too hard. Castiel’s hand was on his stomach now, gradually moving up towards his chest, and the image of a dog getting its belly scratched flickered through Sam’s mind before he opened his eyes a final time to look up at the night sky.

It still held the wonder of possible answers amongst its many stars and planets and galaxies. The universe was a wondrous place and full of mysteries; somewhere out there had to be the answers both he and Castiel were looking for, Sam just knew it. They’d find them someday, just as sure as Dean could find the best burgers and pie in any town they ever stopped at.

“I’d do anything for you too, Cas.”

Sam fell asleep under the starry sky, with his head in Castiel’s lap, and more relaxed than he had been in months--years even.


End file.
